Participating in a trade show is always a heavy investment. Not only in marketing budget but also in internal resources to get everything ready for the event. But if you do your marketing homework, you can get much more out of this investment than just a successful show. Here is how you can get more ROI before, during and after the show.

Organizing a trade show booth is such a challenging task under time pressure that exhibitors tend to focus all their attention on getting everything done for the show itself. Of course, this is essential. But you can achieve much more marketing impact buy building a whole campaign around your show participation. A campaign that will increase the reach of the exhibition itself and stretch the time frame in which you address your audience.

Before the show: Build up momentum

Before the show, your goal is to drive as much traffic as possible to your booth. Visitors must consider your booth as a must-see when planning their walk through the show. You shouldn’t start too early, because people will not pay attention to something too far ahead, but you can actually start your campaign several weeks before the show to progressively build up a momentum of curiosity and excitement. This is particularly true if you are introducing a brand new product or technology at the show: make sure every knows upfront that something big is coming up at your booth. Even people who don’t attend the show will want to learn more and contact you!

There are may ways to achieve that – here a few examples:

• Create a dedicated campaign and run online and/or even print advertising in key media teasing your new product and announcing its presentation at your booth (include show logo and booth number in your artwork)
• Send out a preview press release to the media at least four weeks before the show (so print media have a chance to publish it in their show issue).
• Offer free entry tickets to the show to your customers and prospects via newsletter, social media, etc.
• Plan a social media preview with a series of posts highlighting the top innovations showcased at your booth

Disclose enough content to make people excited and curious, but you don’t have to tell the full story, especially for an all-new product to be released at the show. Don’t blow all you ammunition at once and keep some for the show itself. For example, announce a brand new product with a few key facts but disclose the full specs only at the show. That way, interested visitors have a good reason to stop by your booth to learn more.

During the show: Fight for attention

During the show, every exhibitor is competing for visitors’ attention, so you need to be creative. Your goal is that everyone should be talking about you, your booth and your new product. Here are some ideas to reach that goal:

• Try to be creative with your demos. Are people going to stop to watch yet another turntable or conveyor belt with a camera pointed at it? The ideal demo is different, fun and interactive.
• Think of ways to have visitors interact with the demo and be encouraged to do so, for example with a lucky draw.
• Think of original corporate gifts. Instead of the usual pen, maybe some branded candies or a useful tool is the better choice. One of my former companies used to offer delicious banana milkshakes at their booth and that alone drove a lot of traffic!
• Participate in the conference. Giving a speech about your new product will give you additional exposure to the show attendance.
• Organize a press conference if you have some exciting new technology.

But don’t forget about all the people of your target audience who are NOT attending the show! Use the platform of your booth to inform and entertain them online, for example with:

• Behind the scenes photos of build up/dismantling on social media
• Short videos of your demos or interviews of your experts
• Recording of your conference presentation
• Sharing the video content/presentations you may have running on your booth
• a virtual, interactive version of your booth on your website

At the show, you have your products, live demos, your experts and a branded environment (your booth) all at the same time and the same place. Use this unique opportunity to generate as much content as possible that you’ll be able to use after the show in a lot of different ways. Make photos of your booth, shoot video interviews of your booth staff, capture videos of your demos, etc. Even if you don’t use all of it for your live social media posts, this is great material for your post-show campaign.

After the show: Expand the reach

Even if you are tired and relieved after the show closed its gates, your campaign is not over yet! Your goal is now to keep the momentum up as long as possible and make sure your audience remembers your key innovations. Here are some ideas of how to do it:

• Send a “thank you” email to all your visitors within three days at the latest, including a review of the highlights of your booth. There are even automated systems that send such an email within hours after the prospect visited your booth.
• Send a review of your show highlights to your newsletter mailing list so everyone knows, even if they were not at the show.
• Sort and edit the content you captured at the booth and publish it on social media. Don’t release it all at once, but rather in small pieces of content every few days. You can also consider translating some of this content for people from the other side of the world who could not attend that special show.

These are just a few examples. There are many more ways to maximizing your trade show investment by stretching its reach in time and space and turning it into an online content marketing investment that will fuel your leads funnel over several months. But most of the time, the challenge is that all your resources are concentrated on getting the booth done (before), serving your visitors (during) and following up on leads (after the show).

At Vision Markets, we have the expertise to find the creative ideas that will make you stand out of the crowd and the resources to make these ideas reality. Contact us to leverage on your show investment and make the most out of every dollar/euro you spend!

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Market leaders in Machine Vision are hosting their website in up to 10 languages. What is the reasoning behind and what may you consider when translating your marketing content into the language of your target customers.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• Creating marketing content in the local language has highly beneficial effects on SEO and Customer Experience. In consequence, examples show accelerated business growth in the corresponding target market.
• Machine Vision market leaders maintain multi-localized web-presences. They translate their marketing content into the languages of their target markets.
• Translations must be flawless, especially when they involve technical details. The use of false terminology in translations ruins a vendor’s reputation of local presence and/or technical expertise.

The websites of players like Cognex, FLIR, and Edmund Optics are providing their content in twelve, eight, and seven languages, respectively. Twelve of the top-13 OEMs of Machine Vision Components host their website in more than one language. All websites are in English. German, Chinese, and Japanese are also most common but one is even available in Portuguese. Below you can find charts and tables with further statistics.

Why do these market leaders take the effort to translate their marketing content into foreign languages? Here are the top-4 reasons:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Users Tend to Search in their Local Language

According to Vision Market’s analyses, the EU and North America accounted for 54% of the global Machine Vision component market. While English is considered as the most common language in the world by native and second-language speakers this is especially true for the Western hemisphere and the high-tech community. Thus, it is not surprising that vendors provide their website in English in the first place.

Yet, Machine Vision target customers even in France, Italy, Spain, and the DACH region tend to search online in their native language instead of English. When splitting EMEA into DACH and the rest of EMEA, China is the biggest single market for imaging technologies. With numerous local suppliers, there is no point in trying to win business in China without Mandarine speaking staff and marketing content in the local language. On a just slightly eased level, the same holds for Japan and South Korea.

Search Engines Prefer Websites in the Local Language and on Local Servers

Search Engines obviously favor websites that are available in the same language as the user’s browser setting and the entered search term. This was proven by an experiment conducted by Vision Markets with one of its clients: After translating their website from English to German, the number of website users from Germany grew by up to 52% yoy. The page started ranking on the first page of Google for 10 of the most important key phrases. In the following year, our client’s high 6-digit business in the DACH region had grown by 45% without local resources in sales.

The search engine performance of a translated website improves further with the use of a Content Delivery Network (CDN). These networks emulate a hosting server of a website located in or near a target region. This increases the load speed of the website and gives search engines the impression of a server location closeby. Both aspects let search engines increase their rating of the relevance of a website for the target region.

2. Improved Customer Experience

What does it tell target customers, when a vendor provides its website and marketing content in their local language? First of all, it shows dedication to servicing a specific market. Customers unconsciously assume that the vendor already has significant business in their region, and therefore it shall be easy to do business with him. Customers at least hope for native speakers in your sales force and your technical support team.

Great content is worthless if it is hard to understand for the target audience. Descriptions of product features, educational content, and your corporate identity must reach their destination to resonate: the hearts and minds of the prospects. With content in the native language of the target clients, this goal is much easier achieved than through a foreign language.

3. Opportunity to Show Expertise and Core Values

The majority of the effort lies in the initial creation of copy, independent of the language it is created in. The translation of the text into different languages is a relatively small step.

Uncompromised quality and reliability are often the most important requirements of Machine Vision customers. Therefore, these should be part of the corporate core values of every OEM in the market. By using the right technical terminology in every language, vendors can display their attention to detail, quality, and their expertise in a subject.

Thus, the high quality of translations is key. Flaws, e.g. in false translations of technical terms, can ruin a vendor’s reputation as an expert and trustworthy partner in the eyes of a new prospect. Typical translation bureaus are not educated enough for using the correct terminology in the target language. In-house translation reviews or the training of non-technical translation staff is time-consuming. Therefore, translations of content about Machine Vision and its target applications should always be performed by technical experts with great language skills.

4. Competitors Do

The market intelligence team of the Vision Markets Network has screened the websites of the top-13 component OEMs in Machine Vision. Here you can find an overview of the languages provided:

Localized websites and marketing content is a priority for the leading players in Machine Vision. Would they do it, if it didn’t pay off?

Several of them want to…

• … provide the best customer experience to their clients in Germany, France, UK/US, or China.
• … make sure their local content is perfect in language and machine vision terminology.
• … invest as little time and resources as possible on the translations of website texts, email newsletters, white papers, press releases, and collateral.

We are happy to count them as valued customers of Vision Markets.

Get your website and content translated into German, English, Chinese, Italian, French, or Spanish! Our experts ensure the correct use of Machine Vision terminology and let you shine as subject expert.

Are you serious about machine vision marketing? Join our VisionLytics community of marketing executives here: https://markets.vision/visionlytics/

A crucial element of content marketing is the distribution of the content. Trade media channels in Machine Vision and its application areas are generally welcoming press releases regarding your new products, company news or the release of educational content like white papers. Thus, press releases are a highly efficient way to get your content noticed plus it is likely the fastest generator of high-quality backlinks for your SEO.

But how do you get the editors’ attention so that they share your message with their (and your) target audience?

Editors are receiving tons of content every day. Their key challenge is to efficiently identify news mailings which are truely relevant for their readers.

Therefore, your press release needs to show immediately the relevance for the particular media channel. In addition, the form and style of how it is submitted can make a big difference.

So, what form and style do editors of trade media expect?

We have asked them and here is the summary:

1. Keep the header as short and precise as possible
2. Include an excerpt in your email text so the editors can see the relevance at first sight.
3. Attach the press release as an MS-Word file (.docx)
4. Mention the number of words and characters of the full press text
5. Include a direct link to a high-resolution image for download. Do not embed images in the text file!   
6. Send one matter per each email only, in case of several product-news preferably send multiple emails.
7. Do not send ZIP files that the editor needs to rummage through to find the relevant information.
8. Always give an option to unsubscribe from you press list

Are you into marketing communications in the Machine Vision industry? Join the VisionLytics community of marketing executives and get a free template of the perfect press release for your company. The template includes step-by-step instructions on how to craft the perfect press text. Click here!

No time to write your copy or not sure how to get it right?
The Machine Vision copywriters of the Vision Markets Network have your back!

The Corona Pandemic hit the global Machine Vision sector and intensifies the challenges it was facing already in 2019. Today, we are sharing with you the 6 Reasons why now is the time to invest in digital marketing.

Let them resonate with you and feel free to utilize them when convincing your colleagues on how much budget you need and what to use it for.

There is money in the market

The lockdown was a shock to the markets, but as we see in China the economy is gaining steam again. Also, the stock markets show a steady recovery in the last weeks.

This U-form of drop and recovery could be a good sign overall and show a similar return for business.

Therefore, we can be expected that investments in equipment are coming back soon. The short-term devastation we have seen in April and May is already easing now mid of June. Especially automotive is expecting recovery (see the German Ifo Geschäftsklima-Index). The engineering sector is still skeptical, but due to the low-interest rates combined with a drop in the consumer markets, B2B investments should take back some grounds.

Think long term, not short term! The practical reality is, we need to market now – economical, effective, and agile at the same time.

Content

Does your sales staff struggle at the moment? Communicating and engaging with your audience is essential – even more important than before.

During this time of skeptical restraint do not focus on selling – show how you can help your customers!

This is the time for good content, educational case studies, webinars, and online tutorials for example introducing technologies and strategies for remote services.

Social Distancing Media             

As Social Media usage is going up due to physical distancing, you can use this to enhance the reach of your corporate channels and strengthen your personal network. Engage in conversations with your customers for example in subject-related groups and forums. Comment on relevant posts, like, and share.

This is the time to connect and build up or strengthen business relationships. The focus should be mid- and long-term. What you can do right now is providing value and being a friend to your network?

Highlight how you can help and give support, share relevant content to spread relevant information you like and find interesting. We are all in this together!

Email still works!                                                      

As trade fairs are canceled and conferences are held only virtually, email communication has always been and is still a good way to keep in touch with your customers. Emails seem very old-school but studies show emailing is the channel with the highest return on investment. Be sure your mailings are personalized, customized, and relevant for your audience.  

Website

Most B2B deals start with a Google search – especially in Corona times. A low-cost option to increase your rankings on Google is to update your website content.

Include questions your customer might ask in your headlines and blog entries. This gives your content an instant booth in search ratings as the Google algorithm looks for answers on concrete questions.

Make sure your products are found online – invest in relevant content, update your website and publishing dates so your website is interesting for search engines

Adapt instantly

Developments are fast and predictions are only very short-term. Stay agile with your marketing strategy and your spending. Start with reasonable, low-cost elements like website updates and upgrades, social media, and content you might already have in the hindquarters.

We are happy to help you with your marketing strategy, content creation, and reporting. For our close network and existing customers, we are happy to do individual budget solutions.

Are you interested in news, analyses, and expert advice for Marketing and Sales professionals in Machine Vision? Join the VisionLytics community of Machine Vision marketers!